House Hunting
by Acepilot6
Summary: A Tertiary/From Here On story. Phil and Lor go house hunting as they graduate college. Lor's dad, however, is less than thrilled with the whole arrangement. A bridging fic between Tertiary and From Here On. Reviews are appreciated.


**If you enjoy this fic, be sure to head over to the profile for the author ****fromhereon****. Because this series is a collaboration between myself and LordMalachite, we've decided to post it under a shared name. More extensive notes at the bottom of the fic.**

**From Here On: House Hunting  
**Acepilot

8 - * - * - 8

"Are we leaving or what?"

Lor bit her lip and stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. She knew that this stall would not last long - her boyfriend knew that she didn't wear make-up, and _he _had already braided her hair, so there was a limited array of things that could be taking her so long.

"In a minute. I'm just..." she stared at the bench in front of her, trying to think of _anything_ she might be doing, "putting in my contacts," she offered, fixated on a bottle of saline solution.

There was dead silence from the living room for a moment.

"_I'm _the one who wears contacts," he reminded her.

"I wear contacts," she said. "You're just not that observant a boyfriend."

She heard a sigh from the other side of the bathroom door. "You called him, didn't you?"

The jig was up, and Lor sighed in return. She stepped out into the living room where Phil was tapping his foot against the floor. She had, early in their friendship, learnt that this was a sure sign of his slow loss of patience.

"I did," she admitted. There was no point trying to deny it _now_. "I didn't tell you."

"Obviously," Phil said. "What were you planning on telling me when he just showed up?"

"That's he's looking for a place in North City and it was just a lucky coincidence?"

Phil sighed.

"It means a lot to him that we want his help," she said. "He cares about us."

"He's your dad. He cares about you," Phil said. "I'm just kind of there."

"Well...we'll work on it."

"He's not going to like any of the places," Phil predicted.

"I'm sure he will," Lor said.

8 - * - * - 8

"These floors are slanted," Daniel declared at the first apartment.

"Lends it an easygoing air," Phil suggested.

8 - * - 8

"I don't think they've updated these pipes in fifty years," Daniel told Lor. "Do you think that you and Phil are capable of taking care of pipes?"

Lor touched Phil on the shoulder, drawing little circles with her nails to try and keep him calm.

8 - * - 8

"You see that hole over there?"

Phil peered at the roof, trying to see what Daniel was pointing at. "No."

"Maybe your eyesight is compromised from the fumes. All that paint, you know."

The tapping sound of Phil's foot made Lor suspect that it was time to move on to the next flat.

8 - * - * - 8

"I don't know. Are you sure this place is going to be big enough?"

Phil DeVille rolled his eyes and felt the need to hit something very, very hard, but Lor grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly. "He's just trying to get a rise out of you," she told him.

"It's working," Phil informed her.

"I know, I know."

Daniel MacQuarrie stomped hard on a floorboard in the not-quite-large-enough unit's dining room-meet-living-room. "Shoddy construction values, here."

"I'm so glad that you came along to do this with us, Mr. MacQuarrie," Phil told him, planting a bright and cheery disposition on his face and in his voice. "Otherwise I don't know how we would have spotted all the deficiencies with these apartments."

"You kids today need to keep your eyes peeled," Daniel told them. "You're liable to get ripped off if you don't know about _practical things_, Phil."

Phil gritted his teeth – and the normally soothing effect of Lor's hand on his arm was starting to lose its effectiveness. "Hmmm," he managed, but it came out more as a strangled noise from the back of his throat.

"I think it's a pretty nice place," Lor offered, in an attempt to placate both her father and her boyfriend. "I mean, it's a little older than we were thinking, but...other than that, it's pretty much everything we've been looking for."

Daniel shrugged. "You kids these days. Everything you've been looking for, huh? Wish I was that easily satisfied," he told them as he was walking through the door into the kitchen. He called back over his shoulder, "You know, there are a bunch of great apartments – even a few _houses_ – going for this much back in Bahia Bay. You should come take a look."

"And there it is," Phil muttered to Lor, rolling his eyes. "Pay up."

She shushed him but obligingly pulled a five-dollar-bill from her pocket. "You're hardly making things easier."

"Excuse me?"

"I know you don't like him very much - "

"It's got nothing to do with whether I like him very much or not, Lor. It's got to do with the fact that he's never going to accept the idea that you're moving away from home – and that you're moving away from home to be with _me_."

"Yeah, okay, he's not too keen on the idea," she agreed, somewhat reluctantly. "But having him here for us doing this is important. It lets him realise that this _is_ real, that it's _really_ happening. And the sooner he comes to terms with it all, the sooner all three of us can get on with our lives."

Phil groaned. "I just don't get why he doesn't like me. I mean, I understand _why_ he doesn't like me, I just don't buy it as being a good reason. Okay, sure, I'm hardly going to win handyman of the year or anything, but I'm way more _practical_," he emphasised this word with a long, drawn-out-drawl, imitating the way Lor's father threw it at him as an insult, "than Tino and he loved Tino."

"Tino had a sixteen-year head-start," she pointed out. "You'll get there."

"In sixteen years, huh? He didn't even like that swanky uptown place."

"I thought it was out of our price range?"

"It is. Way, way out. I just wanted to test my hypothesis."

"And?"

"According to your father, it wouldn't do because the windows were 'single-paned.'"

Lor rubbed her neck a bit, thinking. "We do get snow."

"Yeah, like once a decade. Lor, we both know what this is about." Phil complained.

Lor's gaze traveled downward at the shuffling of Phil's foot. "Alright, alright. I'll talk to him."

"One of us has to, and I don't think it will end well if I do."

"Go look in the second bedroom and see if there'll be enough light," she suggested, standing on her toes for a moment to kiss him softly. "I'll go talk to him."

Phil smiled at her and kissed her in return, squeezing her hand before wandering off down the hall toward the bedrooms.

Lor, meanwhile, followed her father somewhat belatedly into the kitchen, where he was inspecting the cupboards. "Lor, honey, I don't think these cupboards are large enough."

"Dad, stop," she told him.

Daniel looked up from under the sink. "Stop what, Lor?"

She rolled her eyes. "Stop _everything_. Stop looking for every little fault in every apartment we've been to, for a start."

"You said you wanted me to come along so you could get my opinion."

"Yes, Dad, I want your opinion. I want your opinion on if you think this is a nice place. I didn't bring you along to inspect the plumbing or to see if you think the floor slants. I brought you along to see if you _like_ the place, if you think it would be a good place for us to live."

He shrugged. "Well, that's how I judge a good place to live, Lor."

She sighed. "I get that, really. But you've got to stop bullying Phil."

Daniel scoffed at this request. "What do you mean, _bullying_ Phil? I've not said anything mean to Phil."

Lor let out a short, sharp laugh. "Oh really? All those digs about not being practical – making fun and point out every little flaw of all the apartments he wanted us to show you – you don't count that as bullying?"

"He's a big boy, he'll get over it," Daniel snapped, looking distinctly upset with his daughter. "And the problem is that _none _of these apartments the two of you are looking at are any good for their prices."

"They're great for their prices," she corrected him. "We're not in Bahia Bay, Dad. I know that it all seems pretty expensive to you, but North City is both a lot bigger and a lot closer to LA, and that means prices do tend to shoot upward."

"Then why live here?"

She groaned, hanging her head in her hands. "You don't take hints well, do you, Dad?"

Her father crossed his arms and stared her down. "You know you could walk into a job with the Bahia Bay Herald. They're always looking for writers, and now you have your degree..."

"Do you know _why_ the Herald is always looking for writers, Dad?" she asked. "Because they're always leaving. The Herald is a transition, a hometown paper."

"In _your _hometown," Daniel pointed out.

"Well, there's jobs for me here too," she told him. "And Phil's job _is_ here. So he has to be here."

"That doesn't mean you do as well."

"And at last, we come to it," Lor groaned. "You don't want me to live with Phil."

Daniel rolled his eyes. "It's not that simple, Lor."

"I've been living with him for two years," she pointed out. "We've been together for nearly eight months."

"And have you considered that maybe you're rushing things, just a bit?" her dad asked. "I mean, you're tying yourself down to somebody already. You're barely out of college – like you said, you've only been together for eight months."

"It's not that simple, you know that. And it's not like I'd be your first child out of home, either. Did you give Simon this much grief? Hell, Kirk moved in with Penny."

"That's different."

"How?" Lor put her hands on her hips and stared her dad down. "Is this the girl thing again?"

Daniel rolled his eyes but Lor saw him colour slightly. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Oh, don't give me that," Lor told him. "You want me to stay home because I'm _the_ girl."

"It's not that," he insisted. "Except, well..."

"Except well what?"

Daniel sighed. "When you came home last Thanksgiving, and brought him along...I barely recognise you, Lor. It's like you've...well, changed."

"How so?" she asked, leaning on the kitchen bench.

"Lots of things," he told her. "Your hair, for a start. You once said that you never wanted to have long hair because it got in the way. But now it's longer than your mother's. You've put on weight – not much," he hurriedly backpedalled, "but just so that it would appear you're not spending as much time...out there, doing the physical kind of things you used to do. And then there's Phil."

"Yeah?" Lor asked, feeling something catch in her throat.

"When you brought him home...I know you said that there was nothing happening between you two, and I believe you – I don't think you'd have lied to me. But the two of you were so clearly...enamoured with each other, it was impossible not to see. And it's only since he came into your life that I've started to see these changes in you – and now you're talking about moving _here_ for no better reason than he's here. You're letting his life dictate yours and I...I don't want to see you become somebody's shadow. You've always been such a strong, confident girl. And I don't want to see you lose that."

Lor stared at him, baffled. "So, what? You think I've fallen in love with Phil and now let him make all my decisions for me? That he's stopping me from living the life I might want to live?"

"I wouldn't have put it like that," Daniel corrected her. "But...well, yes."

"I don't spend as much time playing sport and the like any more because I've been juggling university and a job for the last few years. When I said that about my hair, Dad, I was _eight_. This is just something I'm trying that's different – no matter what length my hair is, I'm still the same person. And as for Phil..." she trailed off, trying to find the right words. "I'm not his shadow. If I was, I don't think he'd be interested."

"But -"

"All these _changes_ you see in me Dad..." she sighed. "They're things that have changed in _me _for a million reasons. I've been through college, I've lived on my own, I've tried to hold down a job, I've met someone that...that, yeah, I might want to spend the rest of my life with. I'm not the same person I was when I was a kid – hell, I'm not the same person I was when I left home for college. And I'm sorry that you missed a big chunk of that. But I hope you can realise that, for better or worse, I'm something of a different person now. And I'm in love with Phil, lack of practicality and all."

Daniel stared at her. "Kirk just didn't seem to change quite so much when he left home."

"Maybe if he'd grown a beard it would have prepared you better for my long hair," Lor suggested.

Daniel wasn't quite sure whether he was meant to laugh or not, and just stared at his daughter.

Phil stepped back into the room from the small hallway the flat's other rooms came off, observing the odd standoff his girlfriend and her father seemed to be engaged in. He crossed the room to stand next to Lor, taking her hand and running his thumb across her knuckles in much the same way she had done for him only minutes ago. "The other room looks good. We'll probably be able to fit your desk and my work stuff in there easily."

His voice shook Lor from her staring match with her Dad and she turned to face him. "Good," she said, squeezing his hand. "So," she said, turning back to her Dad, "what do you think?"

He looked at the two of them, standing there before him waiting to hear his opinion on the home they seemed to be planning to make for themselves.

"I think," he said, "it'll probably be fine."

8 - * - * - 8

**Alright, here it is – drum roll please. This is, basically, the 'prologue' to **_**From Here On**_**, which will be out within the next week or two. It will, however, be posted under a different account – named ****fromhereon**** – here and on Deviantart. It's a collaboration between myself and LordMalachite, who has been, I've got to say, the most talented, open-minded and, above all, patient collaborator I've ever had the pleasure of working with. Seriously, can't overstate his patience – we've been trying to do this for years. Enjoy the preview and keep your eyes peeled for the series itself soon.**


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